


you're trying to save me (stop holding your breath)

by salazarsslytherin (dust_ice_fire)



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 23:00:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1759125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dust_ice_fire/pseuds/salazarsslytherin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik arrives at Westchester one night with a stolen government file labeled <i>Xavier, C.</i> and a bullet lodged in his side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're trying to save me (stop holding your breath)

**Author's Note:**

> Shamelessly self-indulgent fic because hurt!Erik needs to happen a little more often. Set some time after DOFP.

Charles is asleep when Erik comes, but he’s always slept lightly.  It’s the strong push of pain that rouses him, and for a moment in dream-addled confusion he presses his hands against his ribs, trying to quench phantom blood loss, before reality sharpens around him.  He’s fine; he’s not hurt.  Erik is here.  He’s walking up the drive, heading for the front door, and he’s not wearing his helmet.  Charles’ heart constricts and for a second he cannot breathe, torn between yanking his mind away from the brush of helplessly-projected thoughts and feelings and diving in, clinging to Erik and this time not letting go.

In the end, his choice is made for him; Hank is already moving through the mansion, waiting to tear the door open as Erik makes it up the steps, and Charles occupies the position of observer instead.  He sends a gentle warning to Hank to let him know he’s dropping in, and does so once his friend sends him the gist of _permissionokaycomein_.    

Erik looks awful.  He’s pale under the rainy moonlight, his eyes ringed in shadow and bruises colouring one side of his jaw, hair dripping rivulets alongs his cheeks.  He’s wearing his ridiculous cape, but that doesn’t hide the way he’s listing a little to one side, though he jerks upright as soon as he sees Hank.  

“Where’s Charles?” he demands and, despite everything, his voice is as strong as ever.

Hank squares his shoulders and moves to block the slight gap in the open door.  “He’s out.  You’re not welcome here, _Magneto_.”

Erik’s expression folds into a terrible scowl for a moment before it clears.  “Stand aside, Hank.  I know he’s here.  I’d rather not force my way in.”

A low growl emits from the deep of Hank’s throat and Charles hauls himself out of bed and into his chair, hastily making his presence more of an active thing in Hank’s mind.   _Easy, my friend.  He means no harm_.

Hank’s thoughts are questions and doubts but his temper dies down a little.  He forms a thought as speech and pushes it towards Charles; _I can smell blood on him_.  Charles already knows this; he’s been through the subconscious logs of Erik that Hank made upon first seeing him, but unlike Hank, has realised that the blood is Erik’s own.

 _Yes_ , Charles agrees.   _He won’t hurt us.  Let him in.  I’ll be in the study._

With that he pulls away from Hank, catching as he goes the lingering doubts followed by the reassurance that without his helmet, Erik is nothing to the Professor.  Charles wishes that were true in any sense, but untangles Hank’s thoughts from his own and wheels himself to his study.  He’s just settled behind his desk when Hank knocks on the door and leads Erik inside.

The younger man looks across at Charles, who pushes him more reassurance and bids him return to bed.  Hanks does so, reluctantly, and with a parting thought of, _Shout if you need me_.  

Once the door is closed and Hank is safely away, Charles pinches the bridge of his nose between two fingers and turns back to Erik, keeping his mind carefully barricaded inside his skull.  The other man is watching him silently, still lurking by the door, and Charles rolls his eyes.

“You may as well sit down,” he says, and Erik moves closer - carefully - but doesn’t sit.  His cape drips steadily onto the wooden floor.

“I’m sorry to come here like this,” he tells Charles.  “If it could have waited ’til morning, I would have.”  Erik pulls from under one arm a folder that had been tucked out of sight, hidden from the rain by the edge of his cape, and drops it on the desk between them.  Charles can taste Erik’s fear and anger despite his best efforts to keep himself separate and, when he looks down at the file, his stomach drops with dread.  

 _Xavier, C._  It’s a government file.  There are bloody fingerprints along one edge, and Charles knows that if Erik were to splay his hand against them, they’d fit perfectly.

“What is this?” he asks, swallowing past the worry in his throat, but he’s already flipping the cover open.  It’s a thin file, thankfully, but there’s a photo of him pinned to the cover; it’s an old one - from his Oxford days - and grainy, but still undeniably him.  Stamped along the bottom in ink redder than Erik’s blood it says _THREAT_.  His palms have grown sticky but Charles forces himself calm and looks over the few pages gathered inside.  Most of it is unimportant; a scattered and vague recollection of his life; his parents, listed as deceased, Cain, whose whereabouts are unknown.  Dates for Harvard and Oxford and Columbia and names of old associates of his.  Moira MacTaggert stands out for him; the others are old friends he hasn’t seen in years, never intends to see again, particularly if they are being watched.  Raven is listed, _WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN_ ; Alex and Hank have the same comforting phrase beside them, but Sean Cassidy, Armundo Muño and Angel Salvadore are _DECEASED_.  

Charles closes his eyes and sets his hands flat on the desk so Erik won’t know he’s shaking.  “Why did you bring me this?” he asks quietly.

“Because you’re not being _careful enough_ ,” Erik growls, leaning forward as though he can intimidate Charles after everything they’ve been through, but he aborts the movement halfway, jerking upright with a quickly suppressed hiss and Charles catches the hastily-muffled impressions of _hurtingpainredredred_.  

Charles doesn’t want to know what happened, and he hates the way his stomach clenches because Erik is hurt and he has yet to tell him, isn’t even asking for help when he must _know_ that Charles would give it.  He must know, even after everything, that Charles would never - could never - turn him away.

“As far as I could tell, they don’t know you’re here.  They haven’t found Alex, haven’t tracked Hank.  They didn’t even have files on them,” Erik says, and that last sentence is relief, because if they think about Alex and Hank just as one-time associates of Charles’ then they will be safe for a little longer, as long as they remain in the wind.  

“As far as you could tell,” Charles repeats, eyes dropping back to the file as he closes it, the smeared blood ruining the blank expanse of the cover.  

“I was…interrupted,” Erik admits begrudgingly and his thoughts flare again, this time with quick images, gunshots and fire and screaming metal.  “Most of the files were destroyed, but I cannot guarantee that all of them were.”  This failure stings; Charles doesn’t need to be a telepath to know that, but he doesn’t say anything.  Instead he taps one finger against his own file.

“Who had this?”

Erik shrugs - just one shoulder, his right, and he still wishes he hadn’t a second later.  “Government,” he says.  “Unofficially.  They’re trying to implement an act that will require all mutants to register with them and be held on a private database.”  His lips have curled furiously around the last words, eyes dark with anger, and Erik’s utter determination that _this will not happen_ is so stifling for a moment that Charles realises the other man has no idea he’s projecting.  

He doesn’t know what to say to this new information; Charles cannot confess to being surprised, but it’s still worrying.  He hides it, though, and lifts his gaze to meet Erik’s.  “That will take…years before it’s even _close_ to becoming law,” he says haltingly, his voice more calm than he truly is.  “Anything could happen between now and then.”

Erik nods.  “Yes indeed,” he agrees ominously.  “Please,” he adds softly, “be careful.”

Charles wants to laugh in Erik’s face at that; _careful_ , this man advises him, this man who breaks into government facilities and has been seen more than once on the news, hands flung out to hold off the spray of bullets humans continue trying to pump into him.   _Careful_ , Erik says, and never mind the fact that his bruises are growing darker every minute.   _Careful_ , Erik warns Charles, _be careful_ , he pleads, heedless of the blood covering his side.

“Erik,” Charles says as the man turns to leave, unable to help himself.  Erik pauses, and Charles wonders what he should say, isn’t even sure what he _wanted_ to say.  “Did they have a file on you?” he asks eventually, and Erik laughs so brilliantly that Charles feels ribs that are not his protesting.

“What do you think?” he replies, rhetorically, because Erik Lensherr is public enemy number one and the whole country wants his head.  Charles feels sick.

Erik’s cape has disappeared around the doorframe before Charles has a chance to say anything else, and he has to wheel himself hurriedly out from behind his desk to get to the door before Erik has turned the corner.  “Erik!” he calls again, and again Erik pauses.  His shoulders are sagging a little, but he turns to face Charles and cocks his head curiously.  He waits patiently as Charles moves towards him, but his already-patchy control over his thoughts is slipping with every moment, until Charles is anxious about the blood trailing down his side, Charles is feeling faint, Charles is aching in every rib, Charles’ skin is pulling painfully around his jaw when his lips quirk like nothing is wrong and he has to forcibly pull up strong shields to stop Erik from bleeding into him.  Abruptly, the pain vanishes, and Erik is just standing there, watching him.

“Let me help you,” Charles says quietly, and Erik’s face goes blank with shock for a moment.

“I don’t need your help,” he retorts stiffly, taking a step back, and the Erik who was worried about Charles has vanished without a trace.  This is Magneto.

“Yes,” Charles says, with all the certainty of arrogance, “you do.”

Erik holds his gaze steadily for a few seconds before his eyes drop away.  “I’m fine.”

“No, Erik, you’re not.  You can’t lie to me.”  

Erik looks alarmed for a moment, old anger curling inside him at the thought of Charles rooting around inside his head, a place he has no business to be, a place he doesn’t ever want to step into again, _remember_ (a flash of _hurt_ , quickly overridden, that Charles latches onto), and he scowls.

“You’ve gotten sloppy, my friend,” Charles tells him.  Erik’s mental shields had once been such that Charles would have been forced to push through them in order to invade Erik’s mind, and projecting hadn’t been a problem as soon as Erik had realised he was doing it, but he’s grown too reliant on his helmet; without it, he’s defenceless as the day Charles met him.  “But even so, it’s my legs that don’t work, not my eyes, I’m afraid.”

He manoeuvres his chair around as he says, “This is a safe place for mutants, Erik.”  Charles turns just a little so he can catch Erik out of the corner of his eye.  “And are you not a mutant?”  He turns away without waiting for a reply, wheeling himself down the corridor with nothing more than the intense hope that Erik will follow him.

He does, after a moment, his footfalls quiet but uneven on the wooden floors.  Neither of them say anything as Charles leads the way to the infirmary, though he sends a brief mental request that Hank meet them there.  Hank is still awake, of course, and isn’t happy about helping Erik but emerges from his room nonetheless, finding them in the infirmary a few minutes later.

Erik and he stare at each other, eyes narrowed, before Hank’s expression smooths and he steps towards the older man.  “Sit down, please,” he instructs politely, and Erik grits his teeth and does so.  “What happened?”

Erik’s eyes flicker to Charles for a brief moment before the fight seems to evaporate from him.  “Nothing serious,” he says.  “They have _plastic_ guns.  I cannot remove the bullet.”  His tone is derisive despite the admittance.

Charles’ jaw hardens as his eyes widen.   _You fool_ , he sends sharply.  All this time Erik had spent standing around in the study with a bullet lodged in his side, and he'd nearly walked out with it as well.  

Hank is already busy collecting supplies.  “Can you remove your, uh, your cape?” he asks, glancing over.  “And your armour.”

Erik doesn’t move in response, but the fastenings at his throat unhook from each other and the cape falls away to pool around his waist.  The armour follows, unlocking at his sides and detaching so Erik can guide it onto the bed beside him before he grits his teeth and begins pulling off his undershirt.  The material is clinging, stuck to his side with dried blood, and Erik lets out a short huff of pain as he drags it over his head, tossing it to join the armour.  

Charles is really hoping that Erik looks worse than he is, because his left side is plastered with blood and bruises and there’s a sickening hole in his skin just over his ribs, another tear streaking below that that clearly needed stitches about an hour ago.

“Whoever attacked you was a good shot,” Charles observes as he turns away from the sight, one finger fiddling with the holes in the suit, neatly situated between two of the plates.  Erik barks a humourless laugh.

“The number of rounds they fired, one of them was bound to hit,” he replies.

“Two,” Charles murmurs quietly.  “Two of them hit, Erik.”  The other man’s lack of concern is alarming, though unsurprising.  

“Minor damage, Charles,” Erik says, and sends him a glimpse of a building, trembling in its walls as it starts to buckle, bricks caving in and dust swarming to taint the air as he _runs_ , closed boxes of stolen files soaring with him as he takes to the air, breathless but alive.  This projection was deliberate, and Erik smiles slightly when he knows that Charles has received it.  “You see?”

Charles does see.  He sees and he understands that one day, probably sooner rather than later, there will be a time when the news does not broadcast images of Erik brushing bullets aside or descending gracefully amidst rubble and ruins, but instead will show an old mugshot of him and announce that the terrorist Magneto has breathed his last.  The thought closes Charles’ throat like someone’s choking him and he nods at Erik so he won’t have to speak.  He wishes he could hate this man.

Hank interrupts his thoughts as he steps back into view, the supplies he needs prepared and nearby for use.  He’s pulled a surgical mask over his lower face and gestures at Charles to move back.  “I need you to lie down on your side,” Hank tells Erik, who reclines with only a hint of hesitation and doesn’t protest when his arm is manoeuvred for him, pulled carefully out of the way.  

Charles wheels himself around to the other side of the bed so he can see Erik’s face instead of Hank’s hands at work.

 _It looks far worse than it is_ , Erik pushes at him, less a worded thought and more of an impression that Charles has to translate into words; all of their practice at communicating like this all those years ago, wasted.

 _Damage_ , Charles thinks back at him, in Erik’s own voice.   _You are not a machine_.

 _No_ , Erik thinks, because he’s much worse than a machine and they both know it.  His gaze shifts a little as Hank picks up scissors behind him but he doesn’t react beyond that, remaining silent as they  work at the ruined skin.  He blinks slowly, gaze fixed on Charles, who is trying not to notice how alarmingly dark the bruises on Erik’s face are now that they are against the shocking white of the bed, or the red welts along his stomach where the armour digs into him, or the old scars along his shoulders that Charles was once at liberty to run his fingers along like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“We could play chess,” Erik suggests and his eyes brighten.  “I let you win on the plane.”

Charles forces a snort of laughter, but he doesn’t want to remember the plane, and Erik saves him from having to by conjuring a chess board in his head and projecting it at Charles a little more forcefully than necessary.  The edges are blurred and the squares are bleeding together, but Charles fixes those things with barely a thought, editing the pieces so they look true to form and are actually distinguishable from one another, then holds the image of it suspended between their minds, accessible by both.

“White moves first,” Erik says, aloud, and Charles slides one of his pawns forward within the mental projection.  Immediately, Erik shoves his pawn out to meet Charles’, blocking its way, and Charles smiles a little, because some things never change.

He’s actually losing quite badly by the time Hank is finished and stripping off medical gloves, discarding them and telling Erik that the skin will probably scar, but not badly.

 _What’s one more_ , Erik thinks to himself, a whisper on the air Charles wasn’t supposed to hear, but does anyway, his connection with Erik entirely open to allow for the game.  He pulls deliberately back, taking a moment to regain composure and barricade himself behind mental shields.  

“Thank you,” is what Erik says aloud to Hank, who jerks his head in an imitation of graceful acknowledgement.  Charles is endlessly grateful for all the good in Hank’s soul, because the other man does not believe that Erik truly deserves his help, and yet he is helping him regardless.  

“Just don’t make a habit of it,” Hank mutters at him, dropping a small vial with the plastic bullet inside into Erik’s lap.  The words are innocent enough, but behind them Hank is furious with Erik and he wants him _out_ , he wants him away from the Professor and away from their haven and away from the only piece of world they have carved out for themselves because he _had_ his chance and he turned his back on them, and turned Raven’s too.  His eyes drift across to Charles, questioningly, and Charles shakes his head.

 _Thank you, Hank_ , he pushes at the other man.   _You needn’t wait around for us.  I’ll see you in the morning._

Hank nods and leaves without protest this time, likely because he is well aware of what Charles is planning and knows it would be useless to argue with him on it.  Erik watches him leave in silence before he slides off the bed and gains his feet, collecting his armour and his bloodied shirt, tucking the vial into a pocket in his pants.

“Thank you, Charles,” he says, turning to the telepath with a very direct look.  “And I meant what I said before.  Be _careful_.  This world is not as kind as you like to think.”

Charles doesn’t know if it’s because it’s late and he’s tired or if it’s because the way Erik is clutching his armour against his naked chest, fresh white bandages swathed across his side, makes him painfully _Erik_ , as though Magneto is nothing more than a bad dream, or if it’s simply something in the air, but he doesn’t want to argue with the man tonight.  He doesn’t rally against Erik’s determination that Charles is some kind of naive child and he doesn’t bristle at the warning.  He just sighs.

“You can stay here tonight, you know,” he says.  “If you want.  Your old room’s still here.”  It hasn’t been touched, in fact, since the morning Erik left, vibrating with nervous tension and unable to be distracted even by kisses all along his jaw.

“I should-” Erik starts to say, and stops himself, pinned by Charles’ gaze and the weary ache in his bones.  He _wants_ to stay.  He wants to curl up with Charles in front of a fire and fall asleep in his arms and tell him he never meant to hurt him and he’s sorry for everything that went wrong and if the world could be different, Erik would be the first in line to make it so.  But whether he meant to or not, he did hurt Charles, and whether he’s sorry or not, everything still went wrong, and whether he wants it or not, the world is still the same rotten place as it was when he was a child, and he and Charles want different things.  So he doesn’t say any of it, just nods slowly at the other man and readjusts his grip on his armour.  “Thank you.”

He walks behind Charles in silence as they make their way back to their bedrooms, only broken by a soft, “Goodnight,” when he reaches his door and slips through.  

The room is exactly as he left it, a thin layer of dust covering everything, though not nearly as thick a layer as there ought to be.  Someone has been airing the room, giving it some form of life even while they left every item inside to remain in its rightful place as though welded there.  Erik can still see a white chess pawn by the end of the bed, lying abandoned on its side, an incomplete game on the little table by the fire.  

They didn’t often play in Erik’s room, so it’s easy enough to recall the memory of his final night here with near-perfect clarity.  It helps that Erik has spent no less than ten years going over and over these memories, thumbing through them like favourite novels, drawing comfort in bygones and could-have-beens.

Raven had fallen asleep in Charles’ bed after they’d spent some time talking about anything and everything that came to mind, drinking their way slowly through glasses of expensive brandy, the three of them content and in odd harmony.

Erik and Charles, more tipsy than was perhaps advisable given that they were, technically, the responsible adults in the mansion, had given Charles’ room a miss and headed along to Erik’s.  He had a chess set in there, though it wasn’t as fine as the ones Charles kept in his study and bedroom, and they’d set up a game without discussing it, though they never got to the end.  Bolstered by alcohol and a perfect evening of quiet grace, Charles had barely waited ten moves before leaning across the board to grab Erik by the shirtfront and drag him over the table to his lips.  

It hadn’t taken much after _that_ to abandon the table altogether and fall into Erik’s bed, pieces scattered underfoot and forgotten for eleven years, since.

It’s all Erik can think of as he puts his armour down on the nearest chair and stares hard at the bed.  It’s been made since he left; he cannot remember if he did that or if it’s been done since.  He cannot remember who woke first on his last morning in this room, can’t remember if it was late or early, because for some reason, whenever he was in bed with Charles, his early-riser tendencies had been lost, always craving just _one minute more_ of that warmth, that comfort.  He’d known, even then, that his days with Charles were numbered, and Erik had tried so very hard to take each moment he could get and cherish it for the gift it was.

Erik tries not to think of the empty space in this bed and crawls beneath the covers, wearing an old pair of the grey sweatpants they all used to train in; even those are still in this room.  His side hurts as the numbness begins to wear off, but it’s nothing that ought to keep Erik awake; he knows that that is entirely down to the fact that this bed is cold without Charles within reaching distance.

Erik turns carefully onto his back and stares up at the dark ceiling.  He didn’t close the curtains, but the night is dark with rain, moonlight struggling to land limp and pale along the floor.  He wonders if Charles is lying awake down the corridor, or if the telepath has already drifted off, glad for this night to end.  He wonders if his presence makes Charles worry for the safety of this haven, empty as it is, as Hank evidently does, or if it makes Charles angry, that after all this time Erik still cannot leave him alone, or if - _don’t go there_.  Erik cannot allow himself such indulgences.

He closes his eyes and pulls in a long, deep breath to calm himself, calm his mind, and wills sleep to come, even if it feels a shame to waste a second of being back here, in this place that feels like ( _home_ ).  Erik knows that, come morning, he will have to leave.  He will need to return to his real life, of fighting and bitterness.  He ought to make the most of this precious night, take it in and cling tight to the memory of safety - because he _is_ safe here, and Erik believes that, knows it somewhere so deep inside him it’s instinct, or he should take the opportunity to rest and heal, knowing that such opportunities are few and far between.  Instead, he is lying in the dark, swimming in old regrets and the ache that comes of missing pieces.

Erik is barely aware of any conscious decision to move before he is on his feet, out the door and moving softly down the corridor to stand outside Charles’ room.  He shouldn’t do this - it isn’t fair, and he knows it, but he cannot help himself.  For a few minutes, he just stands outside, talking himself into knocking, or into walking away (even he isn’t sure), and only startles into movement when he hears Charles.

 _You may as well come in_ , lands inside Erik’s mind and he opens the door, stands framed there in the dim light of the hallway.  

Charles is lying in bed but he’s looking towards Erik, something on his face that Erik doesn’t have a  name for, but he thinks he knows how it feels; like grief and joy and ruination in the sweetest deal you could ever imagine.  Like rage and serenity.

He doesn’t ask, because he can feel Charles’ want, he can feel the same emptiness in Charles’ bed as though it is Erik’s own.  He doesn’t say anything as he closes the door behind him and slides into Charles’ bed, shuffling closer to his heat and wrapping his arms around Charles’ waist, burying his head into one shoulder, barely covered by a thin t-shirt, and both of them pretend they don’t notice when Erik’s tears wet Charles’ back.

Charles turns awkwardly, and fits himself against Erik’s chest where the wetness on his own cheeks is swiftly wiped away, and whispers quietly into the sleep gathering between them, “I wish I could hate you.”

Erik inclines his head, just slightly, so Charles’ hair brushes his cheek and he lets out a long breath.  He knows.  He understands.  He wishes he could hate Charles, too.  “I’m sorry I love you,” he murmurs, and drifts away perhaps not whole, but more so than he has been in ten years.

 

* * *

 

When Charles wakes the next morning, sunlight streaming through the tiniest crack in the curtains, determined to brighten the room whether Charles wants it or not, his bed is empty.  He’d been expecting that, but it hurts somewhere in the region of his soul, in the very deepest parts of him.

There is a cup of tea on the bedside table, however, still steaming.  Charles picks it up with careful hands and closes his eyes as he soaks in the warmth through his palms, feeling almost as drained as he had when he first lay down last night.  His eyes are swollen, his cheeks stiff, but he feels…cleansed, in an odd way.

The tea is exactly how he likes it - sweet, but not too milky (Charles tries not to dwell on _ten years and Erik hasn’t let go of that knowledge_ ) - and when he moves to set it back down on the table, he sees a note curled inside what used to be a teaspoon, now wrapped in a circle that somewhat resembles a napkin ring.

With eagerness that shames him, Charles snatches it up and slides the paper out, unfurling it to see just four words written there.

_Your move.  Stay safe._

On the table at the foot of the bed, Erik has reset the board for a game of chess and, as Charles heaves himself into his chair and wheels closer, he catches his breath.  Erik has slid a white pawn forward from its ranks and, aside from anything else, that means that he intends to return.  

The thought makes Charles giddy for a moment and he closes his eyes to absorb it.  He shouldn’t let Erik come and go, he knows that; Erik is wanted by the government, he’s a danger to himself and society, and he is especially a danger to Charles - he’s proven that over and over.  And yet, Charles cannot help himself from reaching out and sliding a piece of his own into play; a black pawn, sent to meet Erik’s in the middle.

“Your move,” he says to the empty room.

 


End file.
